Jumbo a circus elephant. TOTALLY huge. From more than 100 years ago. This statue was built on the 100th anniversary of his death by train.

On this past Friday the lad and I made our way to St. Thomas. I had bunny business to conduct and my way was paid down (delivery of a pet bunny). My business is At Home Pets Rabbitry. I sell rabbits and guinea pigs (the lad helps). Anyways, we conducted our business and then off we went to make the most of our time.

Earlier that morning the lad and I had talked about which of the three museums in St. Thomas we wanted to go to. The train station, the generic one or the military one. We had been to the train museum already so that was a no go. And after looking over the two websites the lad asked if we could PLEASE go to the military museum.

Having fun with morse code.

I have to admit. I thought we'd be just browsing the museum after paying our admission. BUT that was not to be the case. We got there. The proprietors waived admission and a young lady gave us the tour. Normally takes about 1.5 hours, we shortened it a bit. They have some neat things in this museum and I see it coming out in the lad's play. :)

This museum focuses on the actions of Elgin County residents in various wars. Boer war, WW1, WW2, War of 1812 (mostly 1813 for residents here), the Korean wars, and another war that I can't recall.

Things of Interest that we Learned

1. To escape the affects of being gassed the soldiers urinated on rags and held that up to their faces. This surprised the Germans who expected everyone to be dead or incapacitated by the gassing, only to be fired upon when they came to "Clean up".2. Rats were a significant problem in WWI, in the trenches.3. Soldiers made some really neat trench art. (this has come out in play as the "soldier angry birds and pigs" are making fancy coats for themselves out of recycled pop bottles). Not quite accurate but good enough. :)4. Jumbo had a made up story told about his death that many people still believe today. He was killed by an unscheduled train because he couldn't outrun it (not because he stopped to save Tiny Tim the smallest elephant). - this tale is coming out in play as the King pig has to save the minion and OH NO!!!!! They are going down the waterfall!!! It's a runaway pig!!! HELP!!! He's going to die mom, he's going to die!!!5. Doing Morse Code is fun, and it's hard to learn the spacing of letters and words.

Some Random Pics

The lad very much enjoyed our time at this museum and came home with tons of ideas and thoughts bouncing around in his head.

I thought this was a good way to add some easy Canadian History into his noggin. :)